Overly critical colleagues make workplace toxic

Dear Sharon: We've lost the ability to have fun at work. Everyone is picking at everyone else for small things, and look out if you should make a serious mistake. -- L.

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Dear L.: Did you hear the one about the man who went for a haircut, and his barber asked him where he was going for vacation. The man said, "To Rome to see the Pope." The barber picked apart the man's idea. "Why would anyone want to go to Rome? Long flights, crammed hotel rooms, and good luck seeing the Pope. He'll just look like an ant to you."

When the man returned, the barber asked him how his trip went. He said, "It was great. The airline bumped us up to first class, the hotel gave us the executive suite, and security selected us to have a private visit with the Pope."

The barber, amazed, asked what the Pope said. "He asked us how we were enjoying Rome, and then he asked me where I got such a lousy haircut."

Since when have we all become so perfect as to slam our co-workers every time they breathe as though our own efforts are flawless? Can we relearn how to be more human?

A quick fix in moments of tension is to tell a joke. Appropriate humour can increase information retention by 80 per cent and the length of time it's retained by 60 per cent.

The best topics for joking at work are spontaneous observations that don't involved criticism of an individual but of a group, self-abasing humour, and any issue that has become the elephant in the room.

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